A multi-entry 6 month visa to Afghanistan cost $240. A letter stating my purpose, humanitarian mission as creative director for Aïna, a media Non Governmental Organization based in Kabul, and a quick interview is all I need. The General Consulate of Afghanistan is on 40th and Lexington in New York City; a small office on the eleventh floor. I apply in person since I’ve been asked to come soon.

10.21.04
The name of the airline is Kam Air. I try to take a picture of the logo on the plane; there isn’t one. It is a Boeing 737 with noticeable dents. No assigned seating. No air for conditioning. Most of the passengers are Afghan men. The few women on board wear black chadors—only their eyes showing. A look unique to women from Arab countries. This airline had recently failed international flight safety standards; Kam Scare they call it. Still, it is the fastest way into Kabul and other volunteers before me had braved it. I figured a scary, stinky flight in was part of my initiation. Close your eyes, hold your nose, hope to land.

The landing is surprisingly smooth.

Note: On February 4, 2005. A Kam Air flight, enroute from Herat crashed trying to land in Kabul killing all 108 people on board.

10.22.04
Kabul’s streets are alive with people but dead otherwise. Skeletons of buses and bombed buildings serve as a foreground to the mountains. There are a few new buildings but many families, I am told, live in these never repaired, bullet ridden shells; laundry lines accentuating their missing walls. At Aïna, for the first time, I find myself sitting in a car being checked for magnetic bombs. There are two security checkpoints before we get in. A courtyard in the middle, surrounded by simple brick structures with various size doors and windows, each with a sign representing a publication or a division; Kabul Weekly, Parvaz, Malali, Photo, Video, etc. All is calm and even the air quality is exponentially better.

It’s a quiet Ramadan Friday but I’m excited to be here and insist on walking around. A few of the other volunteers come along. When we return, we’re told by the country director that we should never walk together in a group like that again. We’re targets; a bunch of foreigners strolling about. Sad.

10.23.04
Suicide bombing on Chicken Street. Around 3:30 in the afternoon. Nigel and Jamshid from Video and a couple guys from Photo were among the first on the scene. I just met these guys, but I feel like I know them. Somehow, we’re on the same team. Their footage, shot shortly after the attack, is gnarly and already sold to AFP (Agence France-Presse) and are the images the world sees when it hears about what happened. I haven’t been to Chicken Street yet but it must be pretty close seeing how quickly they got to there. It’s exciting, but in a bad way. You never hear of suicide bombings in Afghanistan. Feels so Gaza. The ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) soldiers were the targets. Apparently the suicide bomber had six hand grenades wrapped around his belly under his drapy clothes and only three went off blowing him to bits. And five or six other people were hurt. Two of them badly. A street kid and a woman. On the footage, I saw an Afghan pick up one of the unexploded grenades to show that it was still intact. Smiling like he’d just made a discovery. In a panic, another Afghan, an officer of some sort told him to put it down where he found it and get out of there. Uhm...what exactly am I doing here?

I remind myself; I’m here to work on a disarmament campaign. It’ll be the first real campaign and the hope is that we can create a model that can be applied to other social issues that the United Nations and various other NGOs are struggling to communicate to Afghans. Reza’s* hope is to elevate Darya, a design division within Aïna into a real communication agency—the first in Afghanistan. I’ve thought about this since agreeing to the mission. It’s pretty simple in theory. Learn as much as possible about the issue and region, understand what needs to be said and why, say it in a simple, resonate way, channel it through the medium that makes the most sense. It’s basically what I do in the States. Advertising the Think Tank 3 way: Think, Plan, Do. The problem is where’s my staff? Who’s on the ground? What are my resources?

* Reza is Aïna’s founder and president. Aïna, based in Kabul with eight centers throughout Afghanistan, is an international NGO working to establish an independent media and revive culture in the aftermath of the Taliban.

10.24.04
Inside one of the two small rooms that make up the Darya (Darya means sea) office, eight gray laminate desks line the walls, four on each side. Each has a computer and not much else on top. A strange brown warming device is the most interesting object in the room. It’s called a bukhari; basically a wood burning stove. I am introduced to three Afghan boys, two Afghan girls and a lovely Russian woman as a creative director from NYC; doesn’t mean much to them. Inside the other room, their boss holds court; a French guy named Cyril who doesn’t really know what I’ll be doing or how. We have this in common. He’s a businessman, a deal maker and a pilot. His experience with creatives is peripheral at best. We talk a bit about relationships with printers and how he has used this group who now have basic computer and design skills to produce collateral pieces for some local businesses and NGOs. But mostly we talk about flying, our shared fascination with seaplanes and helicopters. I like Cyril. He offers me his assistant’s desk. I need a place to set up, check e-mail, to read up on everything and work; but the smell of fresh and stale smoke in the room is too much. Everyone seems to smoke here.